Bill Shorten ‘re-imagines universities’, with specialist institutions and bespoke degrees

University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor Bill Shorten has called for a “fundamental re-imagining” of Australia’s universities as a “core instrument of our national power”.

In his first major speech on the sector’s future, Shorten has urged breaking the monopoly of the three-year degree model in favour of more flexibility; examining the development of specialist universities, and having companies directly subsidise the credentials they need, removing the financial burden from the student.

A former Labor minister and former opposition leader, Shorten became vice-chancellor early this year. In his address, delivered to the Australian Institute of International Affairs on Thursday, he linked the imperative for change in the university sector to Australia’s need to strengthen its economic resilience, which was a “pillar of national security”.

Shorten said that for all of Australia’s wealth and talent, “our economy is dangerously fragile”. He cited the Harvard Kennedy School’s Economic Complexity Index, a predictor of resilience, that ranked Australia “an alarming 105th in the world out of 145. Our near neighbours are Botswana, Panama, Namibia and Togo.”

He said the structural fragility of Australia’s economy was “the single greatest threat” to the country’s long-term security. The university sector – the engine room of the nation’s intellect – was “crucial to solving this crisis but, in its current form, is a reflection of it”.

A new architecture for learning was needed in today’s world, Shorten said.

Faster learning pathways were required for acquiring knowledge and skills to meet industry’s needs. “Just-in-time, modular, agile. Personalised learning” to upskill workers to capitalise on new technologies.

“We must break the monopoly of the three-year degree as the primary unit of educational currency. The future of learning is not monolithic; it is modular. We must continue to build a system of stackable credentials and accredited units, that lead to subject credits, that lead to sub-degree qualifications, that lead to degrees.”

He gave the example of a defence industry worker. “They don’t have three years to learn about quantum mechanics but they have a wealth of skills and experience and four to six weeks to complete a micro-credential co-designed with industry and Defence to fill identified gaps.

"That credential could be stacked to others, give them credit towards a Graduate Certificate in Strategic Technologies, which in turn could set them on the path to a Master’s degree if that is what they need.”

Shorten said technology had to be used to move beyond “batch-processing students”.

The current system was based on assuming everyone began study knowing nothing. “This is a profound waste of human potential and time.

"We have the technology today to assess existing skills and create an individual learning pathway for every student.”

An AI-driven diagnostic tool, Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL), could assess a person’s existing competencies and build a bespoke degree focusing on their knowledge gaps.

Shorten said a re-imagined university system needed funding to be re-imagined too.

“If a particular skill – teaching STEM, artificial intelligence, or trauma-informed health care – is deemed a national priority, then the nation should share the risk of developing it,” he said.

He suggested a “national skills bursary, co-funded by government and industry”. This would see companies in the health, defence technology, and resources sectors directly subsidise the micro-credentials they needed. It “would remove the debt burden from the individual,” he said.

“To achieve a more complex and resilient economy, we cannot begin by loading the next generation of innovators and operators with a mountain of debt.

"We must see the education of GenZ and Millennials – and that of mature students – not as a private benefit to be paid for, but as a public good in which to invest.”

Shorten said a new architecture for learning also needed a new institutional structure.

The present model encouraged all universities to chase the same goals, spreading limited resources too thinly. This bred uniformity at best and mediocrity at worst.

“Australia’s higher education market is saturated with prestige-driven narratives that often alienate Millennials, GenZ and potential students from regional, first-in-family, neurodiverse, mature-age and non- traditional backgrounds. It is time for change.”

Shorten floated the idea of creating a stream of specialist universities, giving examples such as a national university of advanced technologies, a national health sciences university, or a university of foreign studies.

“Such institutions would concentrate our finite research funding and talent, creating genuine, world- leading centres of excellence, rather than dozens of competing, under-resourced departments.”

He also suggested a university stream that rewarded excellent teaching.

These would become “world leaders in the science of education itself, training the teachers, nurses, and engineers who form the backbone of our society”.

Shorten stressed this was “not about creating a two-tiered system. "It is about creating a fit-for- purpose system, where excellence is defined by the successful execution of a clear and distinct mission.”

“The idea of specialist universities does not make research and teaching mutually exclusive, rather the differentiation would be complementary and serve the nation in a much more efficient way.”

Shorten said re-imagining Australia’s universities was not just an educational reform but “a national security and foreign policy imperative”. It would be designed to “rebuild our sovereign capability from the ground up” and address three critical missions the nation required of universities.

“First it supports our security aspirations by cultivating a sovereign skills base.

"Second, it acts as a bulwark against authoritarianism and radical extremism by embedding critical thinking in every graduate.

"Third, it nurtures the innovation required to build a more resilient and complex economy.”